Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Recipe of a foodies diary

Like a lot of women, I love cooking. It is sometimes a stress buster, at times a boring routine. But mostly its the easiest way to get our creative juices flowing. What better pleasure than to rummage through your kitchen cupboards, hand pick your experimental objects for the day, burn your brain cells and grease your hands to finally have a pinch of the taste. God must have been a woman. There I said it. Everything a woman do right from child birth to cooking- all alternate expressions of creation. Too deep, huh?

Beyond all that, I myself ( and I suspect a lot of others too) enjoy cooking for others. I love to have that feeling of being appreciated and cooking helps me have that almost everyday. But being the lazy bum I am, I dont really have a rhyme and pattern in my cooking expeditions. Sometimes I make something totally out of my imagination. Sometimes I pilfer it from some of my favourite food bloggers (Muaah. You are all awesome). Either ways, I always have a unique dish, no matter how many times I have made it. This coupled with the fact that Im lazy prevents me from jotting down recipes and actually posting it. But hey, who needs me when there are some awesome food bloggers out there. (Check my blog roll to see my faves).

Still, I thought I could somehow be part of it all. Food bloggers are a most amazingly cohesive group and I was devastated I couldnt partake of that camarederie .Then, one fine day the most amazing idea struck me when I was reading a piece on how Buddha died. Apparently, he died out of eating poisoned pork according to a version of history. Buddha always advised his disciples to accept whatever is offered as alms to them and consume it with utmost gratitude and bless the donor.* This was totally fascinating considering the fact that Buddhism is a religion which actively promotes vegetarianism.(Which was my only grouse with the religion.;).See, Im a dedicated non vegetarian).

This was a lot of months back. I had always been interested in understanding the how, when, where and why's of food. Where did all this food come from? How can it be all so different? Genesis and origins of food items, especially the ones from India would be such an interesting idea to blog on. When I shared this thought with an awesome food blogger, Kitchenmishmash she thought its an interesting concept too. But well, it just got stuck in the brain storming phase.

So, now finally I think I will give it a shot.

This blog is purely an amateurish attempt at finding the roots of foods we all love. What if it get lost forever? So this is a humble effort to preserve the trivia and stories behind them.

I will not claim it is all 100% accurate as I will be collecting it from various sources, including blogs and internet. Hence feel free to comment if you differ with something. And you are more than welcome to contribute here. Infact, I would love that. Also pass on tips on books, info sources which covers these. I will be concentrating mostly, on Indian food, but will also venture out on other foods also once in a while.

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Trivia of Buddhas death

Several claims are there regarding Buddhas death, one being he died out of old age and the other being he was poisoned because of a special cuisine. In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, we are told that the Buddha became ill suddenly after he ate a special delicacy, Sukaramaddava, literally translated as "soft pork", which had been prepared by his generous host, Cunda Kammaraputta, who was a metal worker aka blacksmith.

He would at no cost refuse the food which is offered to him. I guess the age old tradition of having to eat whatever is offered by the host suns a long time back. No wonder, our moms are so persistent in feeding guests. Old habits die hard.

A detailed medical analysis is als found here . Its a detailed article, though the conclusion is a bit hazy from what was discussed before.

The other vesion claims that it was not a dish of pork, but wild mushrooms which instigated the disease.